Changes coming to Bethel Village

Sunday

PANAMA CITY — The Panama City Rescue Mission is closer to realizing its dream of having separate centers to address male and female homeless concerns.

PANAMA CITY — The Panama City Rescue Mission is closer to realizing its dream of having separate centers to address male and female homeless concerns.

Bethel Village will be closing its doors and transitioning to the former Restoration Home, 1313 E. 11th St., in the beginning of October. The move signals the shift to women-only services at the new home of Bethel Village and men-only services at the downtown mission headquarters, with a focus on addiction recovery.

The new facility will be called Bethel Village, Pathways Christian Recovery Ministries, and is a dream realized of the mission’s former director Rev. Billy Fox, according to Rev. Cathy Byrd, director of Bethel Village.

“It’s much easier to get women focused on their issues and work with them individually when there is not this ready population of men available to be what they perceive as rescuers,” Byrd said.

Byrd has been with the mission since 2002 and was appointed director of Bethel Village in 2008 by Fox, who was relieved of his duties earlier this month.

Byrd said it had been Fox’s goal since before she began working with the mission.

“Our goal was to provide separation in order to get the women focused on how to address their own needs in more healthy ways than finding someone to just move in with and rescue them,” Byrd said.

Facilities

Volunteers were performing the last minor preparations to the 2-acre facility Wednesday afternoon. The 9,151 square-foot building has 16 bedrooms, nine bathrooms and two kitchens on its grounds. Byrd said the facility will cater to four types of distressed or homeless women: substance or alcohol dependents, veterans, temporary stays and women with children — but not victims of domestic violence, which will be handled by the Salvation Army.

The shelter will be split into three areas to address the needs of each respective group.

“It’s going to be a real asset, as far as women shelter ministries in Bay County,” Byrd said. “There are a couple others that meet specific needs but we will have the broadest continuum of care for women that need overnight emergency assistance, case management or addiction recovery.”

Byrd mentioned the mission’s policy of a limit of five-nights every 60 days will apply to temporary stays.

“During that five nights they will be working with a case manager and we will evaluate what their goals are,” Byrd said. “We assess the situation and what needs to be done from that point, getting a trolley pass or getting them to the workforce center, that’s the purpose of that five days.”

Temporary stay for mothers with children would be allowed more leeway and offered “family integrity” training, Byrd said. Veterans are allowed six weeks to three months to secure vet benefits, housing or life management programs to address mental or physical disabilities. Men would not be allowed on the property at any time, not even for visitation.

Location

As some programs could be more stressful than others, a sprawling yard is just outside and the new shelter has plans for a fenced-in playground for the children, a patio, grill, basketball goal, a walking area and probably a horseshoe pit reminiscent of the former Bethel Village.

Byrd said the only issue with the location is the nearest trolley stop is at East Avenue, nearly a mile away. A priority of the shelter is to request a closer trolley stop to benefit ladies catching a ride to work, to apply for jobs, appointments or getting kids off to school.

The first night of residential sleeping will be Friday.

“This is the fulfillment of a long-time dream to realize this separate campus with a full continuum of care,” Byrd said. “And men deserve a separate campus with the same kind of attention to programming needs we’re trying to meet for women, so we will be working on both of those opportunities.”

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